It is Saturday evening and I am back in Penang after a few days in Kuala Lumpur, which I am told means Muddy River, though I can’t exactly remember why. I had a great time and have really enjoyed Malaysia. The first day (Thursday) we left the ship by tender around 10am for a five hour drive to Kuala Lumpur. En route we stopped at a Thai restaurant for a delicious meal of chicken, prawns, and what I was told was ostrich (looked and tasted like beef!). That was probably my favorite meal here. After that we continued on to the Swiss Garden Hotel where we stayed. It was very nice and comfortable. We had a chance to shower and get ready, and then we left to go to a restaurant with a beautiful view of the Petronas Towers and Kuala Lumpur Menara Tower lit up at night. We enjoyed a traditional Malaysian dinner and a cultural show filled with music, dancing, and different extravagant and colorful outfits. For dessert, they had some kind of ice slushy where you add various ingredients like strange colored jelly/gelatin and beans. I stuck to just the slushy but it wasn’t what you would expect. That seems to be a trend on this trip! About ¾ of the Semester at Sea group went out after but I was feeling tired after a long day so I was happy to head to bed early.
The next morning we woke up sometime around 7 or 8 I think and got breakfast in the hotel lobby. After that, we visited the King’s Palace which was beautiful and exciting. We got to see the changing of the guards, and saw two uniformed men on horses protecting the palace. The flag was up which means the King was on the grounds. After that we went to Muzium Negara which had historic articles from wars and houses, and then we went to a few temples and mosques, including the National Mosque. It’s interesting who certain places are targeted to, as many places use English as the main language, rather than Malay or Chinese. I can’t remember if I have said this already, but there is a 60% Chinese population in Malaysia. My friend Tristan and I stopped at a little chocolate boutique after going to a memorial site, and I got this little local chocolate called an almond cup which was really good. Later in the day we visited the Kuala Lumpur Menara Tower and headed up to the observatory. It is over 420 meters high and said to be the fourth largest building in the world. The Petronas Towers once were the largest, and may still be, but there is a lot of controversy surrounding that, as buildings are always trying to claim that by measuring from different areas. The Malaysian flag is absolutely everywhere. I have never seen a flag more proudly displayed; more so that the United States. It is interesting because of first glance the flag actually looks similar to the US, with red and white stripes, and a blue square in the top left hand corner –however their flag has a star and moon in the blue patch. After this, we had the choice to either end our day with the tour guide, or to continue on for the firefly viewing as planned. Only 15 out of 65 people decided to continue on, and happily I was one of them. We spent the next two hours driving to Kuala Selangor where we stopped at a local restaurant for dinner. It was kind of a shack but very good food. We had shrimp, crab, chicken, vegetables, rice, and calamari all fresh from the area. We had to wait there until it got dark, and then we left to go to the firefly site. We had been worried we might not get to see any fireflies because they are not out when it rains, but luckily we only got a light rain and it was gone in time. We took a little boat ride down the river where we could see fireflies blinking in all directions. It was very cool and they looked like they were lighting up a Christmas tree. The blinking is some kind of chemical reaction and is used to attract mates. From Wikipedia, my only internet source, “Tropical fireflies, particularly in Southeast Asia, routinely synchronise their flashes among large groups, an example of biological synchronicity. In some fields, this phenomenon is explained as phase synchronization and spontaneous order. At night along river banks in the Malaysian jungles, fireflies (kelip-kelip in Bahasa Malaysia), synchronise their light emissions precisely. Current hypotheses about the causes of this behavior involve diet, social interaction, and altitude.”Interesting…After that we headed back on the two hour drive to our hotel, and overall I think it was well worth the trip :)
The next day, today, I got up at about 8am and met the girls for breakfast so we could explore the city a little bit. We planned on going shopping a little bit but it turns out most of the shops don’t open until 10am so we walked around in search of some place to go. Tristan and I ended up going to a massage place called Best Friends. Tristan got a reflexology foot massage and I got a body massage. Mine only cost $10 American dollars for about 45 minutes, it was great. That was my first real massage so it was definitely an experience having it in Malaysia. After that we left the hotel to have lunch at an Indian restaurant (I only ate rice and nan –kind of like a pita –because I had gotten sick after India). It’s weird getting India food when I was just there. After that we had a very long drive, where we arrived back at about 6:30pm. Oh I also tried this chocolate on the way which had a fruit called duran on the inside. It was awful. I should also add, most of the toilets in India and Malaysia are squat toilets (which are not fun at all and make me really appreciate the states) and no toilet paper but sometimes we can find western style. I found one today in the mall where the Indian restaurant was, and I thought the thing I was pressing was the handle to flush, however I was wrong and sprayed water everywhere like a shower would. I left a little wet and had a good laugh about how unfamiliar I am with foreign places. So anyways, after the long drive we were happy to get back to ship and after eating dinner here quick, we went out to walk around and find an internet café. I got an hour for only 3 ringgit (which is less than one American dollar). Now I am back on the ship and going to bed soon, because tomorrow I want to walk around town and I am going to a local orphanage tomorrow afternoon.
Hope all is well back home and it is not getting too cold yet! Here is a little poem I wrote on the bus ride back to Penang, which I am submitting to our voyager’s book we receive at the end of the trip…
We’re traveling the seas
The world is ours today
We’ll visit ten countries
There’s so much we could say
We meet the friendly and the poor
With every place we go
These places we adore
How they change the things we know
Every face is so unique
Yet we are all the same
All we find and what we seek
Will tell what we became
We’ve seen the world from all sides now
Nothing’s out of reach
So lucky and we wonder how
As we learn and grow and teach
We appreciate the life we live
Living in another view
We’re inspired to give
And let go of all we knew
We live on the ocean
With a stranger, now a friend
Our lives in constant motion
Wishing it would never end
